On the morning of the 19th July, 2014, I stood on the platform at Kandivali, waiting for a train to arrive. It happened to be a “Fast”, which meant it would be saving me 10 minutes. Fasts are usually overcrowded and almost impossible to get into. It’s almost impossible to move around.
Anyways, after 5 minutes of frantic pushing I reached close to a group who were busy chatting about their business. Frequent co-passengers usually form such groups which usually share a strong bonding. They are all from different backgrounds but have just one thing in common, their journey.
Luckily for us, we have a group and this makes our journey much more comfortable. This group is known as “The Rodinhoods”… The group comes together a few times a year and it’s known as The Rodinhoods Openhouse. And we were there to launch our dream when it happened on 19th July 2014 at the prestigious National Stock Exchange (NSE) in Mumbai !
Our dream
There are only 2 things which can happen after such a long foreplay of a story. The idea ultimately sucks or it leads to an orgasm of new ideas and possibilities of taking it forward. I am betting on the latter.
The idea for My Cute Office is simple. When we started looking for a couple of desks for our team which stayed very far from our main office, we had to run around and couldn’t find anything for ourselves. Ultimately we settled for an expensive shared workspace, with poor internet. We were also running out of cash, so we had to give out a couple of desks in our office.
That’s when we realised that this is a problem for many business owners and entrepreneurs. We decided to approach companies owning large offices/ working spaces/ shops to list out their space and give it out without the entrepreneur spending anything upfront. No deposit, No commission, No furniture costs or No Setup costs. To our surprise, many were ready to give it out for Free, just to contribute to the startup ecosystem. (We will be listing them very soon)
We had never planned this, since Qpeka, our first venture had also started growing. We were able to convince a few people to list their offices. After a little struggle trying to find people, we realised that in just one month we had been able to get over 100 enquiries, 4 closed, and then came the decision to start making it grow.
So we did that and we sincerely hope that this will help startups and new businesses by removing a big barrier from their businesses. Our dream is to create the AirBnB + Uber for commercial Spaces.
The Feedback
He then asked us about running two ventures simultaneously and whether it was doing justice to one when I focussed on another. This was an obvious question and belonging to the category of people who believes in doing one thing at a time, this was perhaps the toughest questions for me. But we wanted to cross the bridge when it came. As of now I am able to manage both and if required would be open to ask someone capable from over team to take over one of the two and focus only on the one I was managing, which many did not agree with.
The second was the obvious questions about our revenue models. We have a pretty simple revenue model too and charge those who would actually be making money from this, which is the owners/ lessors of the space and that too only on closing the deal. Otherwise it’s totally free.
We were also asked about the territories we were focussing on. We had initially started with the Mumbai suburbs which had a large demand, and were now working on the Island city area. We also had plans to expand to Bangalore next. After that we would be working on building on the Delhi area! To this we were planning a franchisee model, which was something Alok did not agree with. And accordingly we were back on the drawing board and reworking on how to include other areas.
Someone asked for hourly space. Luckily we have a blueprint ready for that as well and will soon be going into development for that.
The questions kept on coming, but time was against us and we had to stop.
During the break, people kept meeting us and we were really surprised to be able to get the response that we did, for which I would like to thank all you Rodinhooders especially Alok and Asha!
The event was loads of fun, and in fact during the dance session, Indie-Yogi called me the Cute Guy (something which I wanted girls to call me for a long time, but didn’t have the necessary qualifications. Luckily now I do!)
Help us help you!
Even though, we have been really overwhelmed with the response we got, but it’s human nature to want more. So please help us by spreading the word about My Cute Office!
You can also become part of our Partner Program. So if you have friends or customers who have a space or are interested in getting one, just write to us on hello@mycuteoffice.com and we will share the details with you about how our program works.
Why are we doing it?
We don’t dream of glories or riches or huge balance sheets. Our dream is of helping a community we have been part of for so long.
Please visit My Cute Office and become a part of our story by sharing your feedback or just talking to us. You can also put your feedback or your requirement in the reply section below.
Again, thanks to Asha, Alok and all you Rodinhoods out there for giving us a Perfect Launch!
abhishekbarari@mycuteoffice.com
*******
UPDATED BY ASHA ON MAY 19, 2015
CONGRATS ABHISHEK AND TEAM FOR GETTING FUNDED!
********